


People Like Me

by kannachan27



Category: Honeydew Syndrome
Genre: Hurt No Comfort, M/M, POV First Person, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-31
Updated: 2008-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23419999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kannachan27/pseuds/kannachan27
Summary: People like him don't like people like me. Metis muses.





	People Like Me

**Author's Note:**

> This was backdated to the original date of publishing, and uploaded without changes on 31 March 2020.
> 
> Slightly ooc/au - especially regarding Metis' past, as I realized after writing and publishing initially. For the purposes of this work, it's stayin'
> 
> Also, first person POV

I was always the loser.

Nobody liked me, they always picked on me. I had no friends; my family was ashamed of me, even if they didn't admit it to my face. But my mother always mentioned when she thought I wasn't listening, always in hushed tones, she mentioned her "failure of a child." Never when I was around.

I knew that I wasn't going to get the best of anything. I just wouldn't ask for it, and I wouldn't have to see the painful smile on my mom's face when she told me that she could not get it for me, or that it was too expensive.

Best to not want it at all.

* * *

I asked for a toy once.

I saw it in the window of a shop. It was bright and stood out, and as I walked through the crowded streets of the city with my mother, hanging onto her hand in that way that small children do, so they don't lose their mothers, so they don't get lost, so they don't disappear. The night was cold, so I was wearing my favorite gloves, and mom had made me wear a red scarf and a hat.

 _"Stick close to me,"_ she had said. _"I don't want you to get lost."_ Even so, I was the one who was clutching her hand like it was going to save my life. She barely had her fingers closed around my small hand.

I looked away from her for just a second, to see with my eyes what I had glimpsed out of the corner of my vision.

It was a toy. A marvelous, beautiful toy, glowing in the window of the shop, just a few feet away from our spot. IIt was red and green and blue and orange and shiny and sparkly, and it was perfect.

I wanted it.

 _"Mommy..."_ I had tugged at her hand, dragged her over to the window, where I had my face pressed to the glass for a moment, the cool of the frozen glass not making much of a change to my own rosy-with-cold cheeks. I looked up at my mom for a second. _"Mommy... Can I have it? Please? Mommy, I want it..."_

Of course, she said no. She always said no. So I learned not to ask. I learned not to expect anything.

It just wasn't meant for a person like me.

* * *

I might have been in love, once.

A long, long time ago. When I was just learning what everything meant, when I was just learning that life wasn't like mom and dad made it seem, that it wasn't all something that parents decide for you. That you could choose your own future, your own destiny. That there were different ways to say something, to mean something, to hear something. To be something.

That not everything was simple, was clear-cut. Not everything was the same as it had been before.

I was changing, and it was then that I saw _him._

I had known him for a while. He went to my elementary school, after all. He knew me, at least my name. Maybe he didn't know that I was that person. But I knew who he was, only by his face though. I had never caught his name.

It turned out that he was in my class. I thought that this was a good thing. I could see him, could prove that I was different from my younger years. That I could add and subtract and multiply and divide. I remember that math was always his strength. Even if it was never mine.

I volunteered to answer a question when the teacher wrote it on the board.

I was in such a hurry to prove myself, to make him see that I was better, that I was different than I was before, that I tripped the moment I stood up and reached for the chalk the teacher handed me. I fell backwards and hit my head on the floor. I cried. And then I grabbed the chalk, blushing furiously if the searing heat of my face was any indication, and I solved the problem faster than I could breathe. And I wrote down the wrong answer, did the wrong work.

Embarrassed myself again.

Everyone laughed at me. I ran out of the room, crying. Heard some kid stand up and start shouting at them all, but ran home anyway. Locked myself in my bedroom in the attic and didn't come out for three days, even when mom asked and told me she had made hamburgers and fries, my favorite.

* * *

My mom got sick of my moping, she said. She slammed my door open, told me to go downstairs. _"You made a friend, must be,"_ she told me. _"The kid's downstairs. He's been asking to see you all week."_

I didn't want to tell her that I don't have any friends. That the only people who talk to me are the kids who pick on me. That the only way someone would want to talk to me was if they were going to pick on me some more, or tease me, or pretend to be my friend for the day and then shove me down a hill and laugh with their real friends about what an idiot I am for thinking that _someone like them could ever like someone like me._

I didn't want to tell her that it had all happened to me before, that I was still the outcast, that it was all a cycle. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Like that L’Oreal commercial. With a twist.

_Because you're ~~not~~ worth it._

I went downstairs.

* * *

His name was Jay. He smelled like L'oreal, blamed it on his sister. Said that his group of friends was sorry, that they didn't mean it when they had picked on me that one time. He had heard what other people were saying about me in school. He wanted to tell me that he was picked on too.

People said he looked like Avril Lavigne.

I told him that he didn't. Next time say that he's never heard of her. Maybe that would work. How should I know? I've never had any friends. I've never been able to stick up for myself.

He smiled at me. Said, " _Thank you for the tip."_ Said that he needed to be going; his sister was going shopping today, and he didn't want to be the object of her torture when she got home and he had to be her test dummy. Left.

I didn't hear from him for a while after that. Found out that he was some popular kid, in his own group. A popular scene kid, named Jay.

Well, people like that just don't like people like me. It's nothing new. I wasn't really expecting to hear anything from him afterwards, right?

Right?

* * *

For a project, I was paired with this kid named Charles. Blond hair, green eyes. Really snarky. Didn't like people, didn't like me. Wanted to get the project done and over with.

He didn't even ask for my name, just said that we would _"split the essay in half, you do one part, I'll do the other. Mash them together and stitch it up with magic. Hope we pass."_ Left the library. Said he'd see me the next day for school.

I wrote my half of the essay that night. Didn't care that it wasn't fair, that we would probably fail the project. That my already bad grades would drop lower and I would probably have to fail the year. That everyone else would go on ahead of me and I'd be stuck with the younger ones. That I would give mom another reason not to like me.

I cared. But I wasn't going to admit that much.

I gave him my half of the essay the next morning. He took out his. Glanced at it. Looked at mine. Read it. Said he liked it better. _"If this isn't going to get us a good grade, then Josh is going to fail Math,”_ he said. I was confused. I didn't know anyone named Josh. And my essay sure wasn't all that good. I just threw some key ideas in there, added information, and used proper grammar and spelling. Anyone can do it.

He said that it didn't even need the magic and rainbows, that there was enough of that in my essay to pull them both together.

I pretended that it didn't hurt me, or that it wasn't meant to hurt me. That it wasn't an insult.

We handed the project in to the teacher, early by a whole three days. He looked it over, graded it. Handed it back.

Told us that we got a ninety.

Charles said that I wasn't so bad. He'd see me tomorrow.

The next day I made a friend in the form of Charles. Found out that when everybody laughed at me, he had been the one to yell at them. Of course, he phrased it differently. _"I was the one who told them all to fuck off and that whelks were smarter than they could ever hope to be. None of them knew what a whelk was."_

I didn't tell him that I didn't know what a whelk was, either.

* * *

Me and Charles showed my mom the grade that we got on our project. He said that he wanted me to keep it, since his sister would probably destroy it, and his parents didn't really care either way. He later told me that he didn't have a sister, just didn't want to keep the stupid piece of paper.

Mom was proud. She said that she was going to frame it. Said that she didn't know her little boy was such a talented writer, that he did so well in school. That he had a friend who was so kind.

Charles laughed at that one. Said that she must not know very much about either, because even he was impressed at my writing, and he was not kind at all. Said that she would probably learn more about both as time went on.

That night Charles laughed at my warm milkshakes and my French fries. Said that it was disgusting. That he wouldn't try it if I paid him.

I offered to buy him lunch the next day if he tried it. Once.

He tried it, nearly puked. Guess he really didn't like it. But he only told me that I owed him lunch the next day. Asked where the phone was, if he could call his parents. If he could stay the night. Came back and said that he could.

* * *

Two weeks later, I had made a friend. He liked me, even if he seemed to hate me most of the time.

He didn't let anybody pick on me. Said that if they did, he would ruin their lives. And when somebody did, he really did ruin their lives.

It was nice, having a friend like him. But there was still a worry, still an uncontrollable fear. I could barely suppress it. It was all I could do to shove it away from my mind, to bury it in a place that his green eyes could not see. In a place that even I could not reach with my thoughts elsewhere. If I didn't concentrate on it, I didn't know it was there. Until it leapt out at me and I had to struggle to quash it down again.

_People like him don't like people like me._

So why was he still around?

* * *

A few weeks later, Jay came back. He asked how I'd been. Said he was sorry for suddenly disappearing on me. Told me that he wanted me to come over to his house that night.

I did. I wish I hadn't.

His sister wanted to be a cosmetologist. She wanted to test something out, and Jay refused to do it. Something about "Chemicals mixing" from her last experiment.

She permed my hair. Badly. Apologized. Offered to get rid of it.

It didn't work. My hair is now permanently wavy. It won't ever go straight again.

Jay apologized. Said that it was supposed to work, but his sister was a ditz. Promised that he'd never make me endure that again.

Asked to sit with me at lunch the next day.

I said yes. Went home. Plopped down on my bed in my attic room and fell asleep.

Wondered: _Why would a guy like that want anything to do with a guy like me?_

* * *

I was just kissed by a jock.

A jock, who's name is Josh.

The same guy that I made an ass of myself for, in middle school. Sixth grade, when I wanted to impress him. When I wanted to prove myself to him, show him that I was different, that I wasn't what everybody thought. That I could be important, that I could do something right. That I wasn't a complete loser.

He was the reason that I met Charles and Jay. The reason for my being as I am. Just kissed me.

I pushed him away. Stepped back. Tripped over a chair. Fell. Made an even bigger ass of myself.

He wanted to know if I was okay. Why? Why would he want to know that? I yelled the first things that came to my mind. Asked him what his problem was. Why he would joke about that. If his jock friends were waiting outside, ready to come in and laugh at me.

Told him. Told him that _jocks date cheerleaders._ That, that even if... even if he thinks I'm a _fucking emo_ \--and that makes me think of when he punched me in the face. The first _real_ interaction that we've ever had, because he doesn't _know_ that I made an ass of myself in sixth grade just for him.--That, even if he likes batman, and his hair doesn't look so stupid that short, that even if he can be considerate if he wants to and sometimes he's geeky and we can get along well without trying very hard...

He's still a dumb jock who's popular.

_And people like that don't like people like me._


End file.
